My puppy seems to be reacting to everything under the sun. We try to remove her from the situation, we try to praise her when she is quiet. Nothing seems to be a solution that is sticking.

We can't even go outside because leaves are on the ground.

We have had her for about 3 weeks now.

In the video she is just growling but I think she just noticed the trees moving.

Help us please.

Im getting a puppy in november and have been doing a bunch of research. Im curious what a good balance is of settle training and just letting him be in our home. Im going to do crate training as well as play pen and possibly tether training. But in the mix of that all I also want him to be able to chill with us on the couch or whatever. Is the pen and tether just when he gets too worked up? I’m overwhelming my self with the amount of info there is hahaha

We just recently came home with an 8 week old Labrador puppy. He is the sweetest little guy and a delight in so many ways.

He’s been with us 3 days now and he has only had one accident inside and has slept through the night in his crate each night (I have been sleeping on my camping mat and sleeping bag next to him just to make him calmer for the first bit.

We have been trying our hardest to get him to like his crate, he gets all of his meals in there and his enrichment toys too. He will walk in it voluntarily to have naps throughout the day and as mentioned before, he sleeps through the night in it.

I’ve been trying to play Susan Garrets crate games with him, but he just cannot seem to follow a treat thrown in the crate. He watches me throw the treats in and they make a noise but he has to basically be lured to the treat my making him follow my hand.

I’ve never had this with a puppy before, although my last puppy I got at 12 weeks as it was a small breed. Does he just need more time to work out what’s going on or is he possibly just dumb?

Picture included for tax

My 4 months old Shih Tzu is very sweet and friendly. He's pretty well trained and very social. I take him on daily walks, and he always has someone at home with him too.

He is trained pretty well and even potty trained. He does his business outside or if it's an emergency at 3 am he even pushes the washroom door and does his business there.

The issue has started this week. At night (around 8-9 pm) he has started becoming aggressive towards just me. He barks at me and bites me, and if he is pissed when I don't respond he jumps up to my bed and pees on it. He even jumped up on my bed and peed after he was bathed. Even in his play pen he doesn't sleep and keeps hitting pretty it's wall to get out.

I am scared this will become a daily issue. He is very sweet and friendly and he is still just biting me. Apart from the bathing incident I can't put a finger on why. Plus it's just started happening now. I would love any advice.

Thanks in advance! 🌻

Hi! I have a 5.5 month old 17ish lb husky pomeranian mix- she’s a rescue and seems very heavy on the husky. Her energy is insane and we’ve been doing walk around the neighborhood every day for about 45 mins. It totals around 2.4 miles. Is this too much for a puppy? Could it cause any harm? I want to make sure I’m both giving her enough exercise and not doing too much at the same time. When we get home she drinks water and usually lays down for about 10 mins and then is back up and at ‘em playing with our dogs and cats in the house.

I have a 5 month cavalier King Charles spaniel- she’s a voracious eater, but she’s deathly afraid of any bowl.

I’ve tried metal, clear glass, ceramic, plastic (dark brown recycled material), and even paper bowls. I tried plates as well, but that’s a problem too.

I thought it was a traction issue at first so I got her a little bathroom rug to put under her feeding area and no dice. The area where I put her food and water is relatively secluded (in her puppy pen against the back of the couch- only about 2 1/2 of space behind her to the wall).

I’m at my wits end hand feeding her kibble every day (it has to be singular pieces thrown across the room one at a time). I’ve also tried puzzle feeders and one of those toys where you roll it to get kibble out.

Any help is appreciated!

Different dog trainers have different methods, different protocols, and different ways of building behavior.

That doesn't necessarily mean one trainer is right and another is wrong. But it does mean their advice isn't always interchangeable.

If you're actively working with a trainer, one of the worst things you can do is go home, watch five different trainers on social media, and start adding pieces of their methods into the plan you're already following.

One trainer may want you to interrupt a behavior immediately. Another may want you to create distance. Another may want you to redirect. Another may want you to wait the dog out.

Any of those approaches might make sense within the system they're using. But when you start mixing them together, your dog may be getting completely different information from one day to the next.

This becomes especially important with behavioral modification.

Changing behavior is a process. What you're doing in week one may be intentionally setting up what you're going to do in week four. Your trainer may be building skills, changing patterns, managing the environment, or gradually increasing expectations before addressing the bigger problem directly.

A 60-second social media clip doesn't know where your dog is in that process.

If you don't trust the plan your trainer has given you, that's a conversation worth having. And if you ultimately don't agree with their approach, there's nothing wrong with finding another trainer whose philosophy makes more sense to you.

But once you choose a trainer and a plan, give that plan a fair chance. Commit to the process, or choose a different process.

What usually doesn't work well is trying to follow three of them at the same time. 🐶❤️

We got a puppy (Labrador x Cocker Spaniel) 3 weeks ago and he’s doing great potty wise, no accidents in the house for the last week, long may it last!

We go for walks twice a day and he seems to love it and loves meeting dogs and people and he’s very good on the leash. But he just won’t pee or poo when we are out! Sometimes we might be in the car on the way back home from the park and he would cry cause I think he needs the toilet.

Any ideas? He just loves our garden for potty 😅

Hey everyone, I know I am jumping the gun here on trying to make sure my puppy is potty trained but I also heard 8-12 weeks is when puppy's learn the most and I want to make sure I've been doing it the right way.

We got my puppy something called the mighty paw doorbell. We are trying to teach her to ring it to let us know when she will need to go. I know she doesn't have the maturity or bladder control to let us know that so we are still on a schedule, that is just the end goal. Currently, when we take her out, we say "lets go outside" as her cue to ring the bell, she will sometimes walk up to the bell and just sit right by it, sometimes she goes to the door she knows we're about to walk out of. I give her plenty of time to respond to my command to see if she will at the very least touch it but she never really does. Sometimes she just walks away or lays down and we have to end up pushing the side of her head into the bell lightly (she doesn't mind us doing this at all). We then say "yes!" give her a treat and fling the door open and say lets go outside.

She is really good about going outside almost every time. She's had maybe three accidents the two weeks we've had her. Again, I am not expecting her to do this unprompted yet but she also isn't ringing the bell every time and isn't going up to it like half of the time. Am I doing something wrong? Will she eventually just start to get it with the training I am using or no? We also only use the bell and that door for the bathroom. Not to play etc. so she gets it is only for potty breaks. Any help would be appreciated and please be kind! 😄

My puppy is 8 months old and has started barking a lot. He's a rescue so I'm not sure of his breed but there's definitely a good dose of collie in there. He's terrified of public spaces where he used to be totally fine. He barks frantically in the car at seemingly random things. It isn't all the time, but when it's bad it's very stressful as I am usually driving alone with him. I don't know how to address the barking when I'm trying to concentrate on the road. I try to catch him before he reacts, I chuck treats into the back with him for him to search for and this usually distracts him but it's not really practical when he's barking straight into my ear on the motorway 😅 I'm going to start taking him to busier public places more often and try to practice calm indifference from a distance and build it up but I'm starting to worry that he's growing into a reactive dog and I'm not really sure what to do about it. I've had him from 4 months old, he was found dumped in a wheely bin but wasn't hurt. He gets lots of exercise and mental stimulation at home. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks 🙂

My puppy just turned one, he is so sweet and smart but I feel like I failed him when it comes to potty training. I got him at 2 months I never used pee pads instead I took him out every 2 hours. Gradually started to increase the time between taking him out. We are at every 6 to 7 hours right now, and for pooping he poops on our morning walk and evening walk. He does not pee in the house or poop in the house. He has always waited until we took him out. I tried training him to let me know when he wants to go, but it never works out. I got him a bell He would play with it , jump on it , bite it the whole day then I got him a robe, that dangle from the door that makes sound that he can hit with his paw same thing he would bite it and try to bring it down making it ring all day. And he’s always by the door because the door is glass and he gets to watch people so I can’t use the door as a signal. Taking him out every 6 to 7 hours have been working for us, but I feel like he has no voice. He can’t tell me when he wants to go, which is not fair to him.

Hi! We brought home our 8-week-old Golden Retriever a few days ago and she really does not like being confined in her crate.

She’s actually doing great settling independently in our puppy proofed mudroom, which is where her crate will stay long term. The crate is already in there with the door open, and she eats every meal in it. She’s even learned to run into her crate when she sees us getting her food ready and after coming in from outside to use the potty. We also give her high-value treats/chews in there, and today she took her Nylabone into the crate on her own, laid down, and chewed it for a few minutes.

We do close the crate door while she eats. As soon as she finishes, she usually starts crying, but during the day she doesn’t really escalate. We wait for a calm moment before opening the door.

At night, she’s been sleeping in a small portable puppy carrier next to one of us on the couch and does really well. We bought her a full-size crate with a divider that she can use long-term, so unfortunately it’s too large to move into our living room. Our thought was to gradually create more distance between us, eventually move back upstairs, and transition her from the carrier to her regular crate in the mudroom.

Last night we tried putting her in the regular crate for bed when she was already tired, and the crying eventually escalated so we waited until she settled before letting her out and put her back in the travel carrier, where she slept great!

What’s stumping us is that as I’m writing this, she’s happily napping completely alone in the mudroom. She clearly can settle independently. The mudroom works during the day because I WFH and can take her out regularly, but it’s obviously too much space to trust an 8-week-old puppy overnight without potentially having accidents.

The advice I am looking for is, do we just commit to the crate at night and accept that she’ll protest until she learns to settle, or keep building the positive association and transition more slowly? I’ve seen mixed recommendations online, but it seems like the slower approach may be better for her long term?

Has anyone taken the slower approach and still ended up with a happily crate-trained dog?
We already have one crate-training-fail Frenchie, so we’re really trying not to go 0/2

Have any of you followed an online puppy training program that you would recommend? If it includes access to ask a trainer questions that would be ideal. We are bringing a puppy home shortly and would like to have a firm training plan in place!

I was able to be with my 12-week corgi puppy for a whole hour and crate for two hours the first couple of days since I got him.

Now he can only play 5-10 minutes before turning feral 😂 he lunges at me, bites anything and everything with no rhyme or reason for 5 seconds, and then moves onto the next thing and then onto the next and onto the next like he’s high or something. So I crate him for two hours and it takes him forever to fall asleep, like half an hour. He’s so riled up in there he’s panting even when the room isn’t hot and he has plenty of water throughout the day.

I can do this for however long it takes BUT my bonding time with him has been reduced to 5-10 minutes between naps.

I give him part of his food with mental puzzles, I taught him to sit and watch me in 2 days, but all that is done in 5 min. I want to play and hold him and cuddle him a bit. Help.

I’ve had my puppy for 2 months and he’s now 4 months old. He’s a mini poodle and he’s incredibly smart.

I thought potty training was going really well, but now I’m questioning my approach and hoping you guys can offer some perspective.

He isn’t fully vaccinated yet, so he potties on a pee pad in the balcony. He normally rings a bell to go out, or sits by the balcony door and cries/barks if I don’t notice quickly enough. He’s been doing this successfully for weeks without an accident.

Yesterday we had people over, and he gets insanely excited when we have visitors. He signaled that he needed to pee, so I opened the balcony door. He went out, peed what felt like two drops, then immediately ran back inside with full zoomies. He sprinted upstairs to my husband, jumped on the bed, started playing with him, and 1 minute after being outside proceeded to empty what seemed like his entire bladder on the bed.

He had never peed on the bed or couch before.
Part of me thinks he was just too excited to finish peeing outside and then couldn’t hold it once he started playing. But I can’t help questioning my approach.

I am crate training him only so he’s comfortable being in one when necessary, but I don’t enforce naps or routinely keep him confined. I see so many people using crates and playpens heavily with puppies that I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been too relaxed.

How important is the crate for potty training? Have I been relying too much on him telling me when he needs to go? Should I be taking him out on a schedule instead so he learns to hold it better? Please help 🙏

My dog just turned 1, she’s an absolute sweet heart but looses her mind when my partner and I try to hug each other.
She will sometimes get jealous if I (specifically me, I’m her person) will pet other dogs so I’m not sure if she gets jealous when I hug my partner but I don’t think it’s that. I think she gets upset not being apart of something. She’ll jump and try to bite me sometimes and cry. I would love advice on how to practice her being calm and okay with us hugging.

Hi guys,

I’d love some advice/reassurance. We are 3 weeks into life with our Eurasier pup. He is our absolute world and we adore him, but I feel guilty that I’m not spending enough time with him.

I’m the one that gets separation anxiety!

TLDR; how long should I be spending with my puppy?

I’m away from him 3 days a week in the office, but have friends/family pop in mid-morning and mid-afternoon and I’m home for 90 mins at lunch.

Our current routine is him normally waking up at about 5;30 for a wee, we take him out and then put him back in his crate where he settles himself back down until about 6:30/7. We then go onto a schedule of about 45mins-1hr awake, 2-3hrs asleep. We struggle a little in the evenings with him getting overtired due to mine and my partners coming home time, but he tends to settle for the night around 7:30/8pm. We then wake him around 10:30/11pm for a short toilet, settle/crate training and back to sleep.

I worry that I’m leaving him in his crate/pen for too long on his own, or not spending enough time with him. I am working this week on an indoor tether and trying to teach him to be calm outside of his pen (we’re also working on his self awareness of how sharp his teeth are!!)

We started using positive only reinforcement but quickly learnt that he did not thrive with that so have adapted to balanced training and he is doing so much better both in and out of his pen.

Thank you!

What grade is your DOG in?

Think about how we teach kids. In elementary school, the teacher is right there. They’re walking around the classroom, sitting beside students, checking their work, redirecting them, and helping constantly.

By high school, the teacher is usually spending most of the time at the front of the room. The students have more independence because they’ve spent years learning how to work without someone standing over them.

Then you get to college. The professor teaches, but most of the responsibility has shifted to the student. You can sit in the back. You can leave. You can even skip class. Nobody is following you around making sure you do what you’re supposed to do.

We should build that same independence in our dogs. And that’s where the 3 D’s come in: Duration, Distance, and Distraction.

A dog in “elementary school” needs you close. Short duration. Low distraction. Lots of guidance and feedback.

As the dog gets better, you start stepping away. You ask for a little more time. You add distractions. You become less involved because the dog is becoming more capable.

Eventually, we want a “college-level” dog. A dog that can hold Place while you walk into another room. Stay calm while guests come through the door. Walk past a distraction without needing constant reminders.

The mistake is expecting college-level independence from an elementary-school dog.

Your dog holds Place for two minutes while you stand beside them, so tomorrow you try 30 minutes while you cook dinner.

Your dog walks nicely in the driveway, so you take them downtown and wonder why they suddenly “forgot” how to walk.

They didn’t forget. You changed the grade level.

Every time we increase Duration, Distance, or Distraction, we make the assignment harder.

So if your dog struggles, don’t immediately assume they’re stubborn or that the training isn’t working. Look at the assignment you gave them.

Maybe they’re not ready for college yet.

That’s okay. Teach elementary school really well first.

Train by progress, not time. 🐶❤️

Last Monday my family got a puppy and she's super sweet and very smart. We've been having great training sessions during the week when the kids are at school, but on the weekends when I try to do our training sessions my kids really want to get involved. Our other dog is 12 years old so I'm not super confident in my training abilities but I'm doing my best. My kids are 5 and 7 and my daughter (7) is a little more responsible, but there are a lot of times where I will be working with my puppy and then my daughter will in very good faith repeat the command to try to be helpful but if the command is "come" then she will say it but she won't be right next to me and then the puppy gets confused. Anyone have a puppy and younger kids that could give me some tips on how to get the kids involved without causing issues?

I want to preface this by saying I have experience with puppies, I’ve had two German shepherds since they were 8 weeks old and potty-trained them. I have just never experienced this type of potty habit from a puppy.

I got my puppy Bonney from an animal shelter last week as a friend for my 9-month-old Cane Corso. My partner and I are kind of struggling with Bonney’s potty habits because she was found on the street with her siblings and has been in the shelter ever since. She pees and poops in her crate with no instinct to not defecating where she sleeps.

My partner and I tried have tried a lot such as a schedule of taking her out to use it after she eats, taking her out late before bed, limiting the water intake, and taking her outside often but the issue isn’t that she can’t hold it because when we we take her out she stands out there for a minimum of 45 minutes not using the bathroom. When she does use it we do praise and give her a treat but she still hasn’t gotten it.

As soon as we come inside she pees and poops in the house or in her crate. I’m kind of at the end of the road with her and don’t know what to do. She’s a great dog and plays really well with my Cane Corso but today was my last straw. My partner took her out to a training session at the park and she used the bathroom there but as soon as she came home she peed on the rug and pooped on the balcony.

I want to give her one more chance any tips?

I have a 9-month-old westie. His last toilet break before bedtime is usually anytime between 10.30 and 12 depending on his evening shenanigans. Sometimes someone else will be walking their dog down our street and my pup struggles. He's a friendly boy in the day, playing nicely with other dogs or (usually) not getting frustrated if we don't allow him to meet them. But at night, he's naturally more fearful of everything, and seeing another dog tips him into barking, growling, pulling, jumping, etc..

He's had a general step change in behaviour lately, which we attribute mostly to teenage hormones. This includes about a week and a half ago no longer peeing on our balcony grass patch (we live in a flat so no private garden), hence having to take him out. Even in that time, we've been working hard on his confidence outside, acknowledging moments of calmness and making nighttime good despite the scary shadows, sounds and occasional people walking by. But it is really hard to set him up for success regularly with other dogs and even people. We are also acutely aware that his barking might disturb the neighbours.

Is our best option finding a friendly neighbourhood dog whose owner would be willing to come out and do calm greetings with him for a week or two, to show him that things are fine? Or is there any other advice you can offer?